Cremation

This paper argues that the large cremation cemeteries of eastern England in the fifth and sixth century can be interpreted as central places where different households and communities congregated for mortuary rituals, ancestral ceremonies and other social activities. Through their size, early date and the predominant use of cremation, these sites were social and sacred foci where a distinctive mortuary ideology was developed that forged powerful relationships between place, identity, myths and memories. The places selected for these large cremation cemeteries also encouraged this role. By examining four cremation cemeteries in Lincolnshire it is shown how, in different ways, each of them encouraged perceptions of both centrality and liminality. This was achieved through their location in relation to routes, ancient monuments , topography and contemporary settlement patterns. It is argued that while societies of the fifth and sixth century may be regarded as less 'complex' and more regionally varied than those coming before and after, social complexity is revealed in part through the role of mortuary practices and burial rites in strategies for reproducing political and sacred authority, social structures and perceptions of group identities and histories.

Busca un poco de leña, que nosotros, los chichi-mecas, de contino andamos con fuego. Relación de Michoacán, fol. 69 T he conceptual associations between fire and the human body are quite complex and polysemic in Mesoamerica, as the contributions of this volume demonstrate. In myth and ritual, the fiery element acquires not only a destructive but also a transformative and purifying dimension. It often catalyzes the mutation of a divine or mundane creature into a new form of existence, thus initiating a new era. This connection is showcased vividly by the reenactment of myths that recount solar and astral creations, such as New Fire festivities (see essays by Chinchilla Mazariegos, Dehouve, Eberl, and Nielsen and Helmke, this volume). If we take for granted that fire worship was embodied by and enacted on humans, then we should find the material signatures of these practices in the archaeological record. As the editors of this book explain, the pieces of (bio)archaeological evidence that appear in the many different contexts cannot not always be correlated to the accounts written in texts or depicted in the native imagery (Tiesler and Scherer, this volume). Having said that, the material vestiges do provide an important piece of information in the degree to which they permit reconstructions of past ritual sequences that can then be tied to motifs and broader ideological meanings. By using the example of the ancient Tarascans, I will illustrate how the utilization of fire interferes in different contexts and transformations. The combined study of the transformation that fire produces in distinctive contextual situations and the transformations they trigger in the bodies can engage complementary interpretations or others that are radically distinctive. I will use ethnohistorical and archaeological sources to discuss the distinct roles that fire and its products (smoke and ash) have played in rituals associated with the human body among the ancient inhabitants of Michoacán. The written sources emphasize the close link between the 11 Transforming the Body Fire Rituals Involving the Body in Ancient Michoacán, Mexico g r e g o r y p e r e i r a

Questo lavoro si propone di analizzare il fenomeno crematorio dalle sue origini. Nato a Milano nel 1876 si sviluppa in Europa con esiti diversificati nei vari paesi europei e negli andamenti delle singole città. Si esaminerà il caso delle maggiori realtà europee e delle città italiane dove il fenomeno ha maggiori riscontri.
Si tratta di una ricerca mixed metod. La parte quantitativa costruisce un database generale dei paesi europei con popolazione, morti, cremati e crematori dal 1876 al 2014. La parte bibliografica sistema fonti internazionali e fonti nazionali come quelle della Fondazione Ariodante Fabbretti di Torino rendendo i dati meno storici e più sociologici. Non manca una parte etnografica con sopralluoghi in Danimarca, Olanda, Germania, Spagna, Milano e Livorno con appendici fotografiche sulle realtà più significative per la nostra ricerca.
Questo lavoro ricostruisce un inedito ed esaustivo database delle cremazioni divise per paese europeo dal 1876 al 2014. Tra i risultati risulta che il maggior numero di cremati si ha in città libere e città imperiali libere che favoriscono l’insediamento di nuove popolazioni e cultura liberale, altresì il fenomeno attecchisce laddove il mutuo soccorso e la propensione a meccanismi previdenziali è più diffuso (civicness).Sul piano teorico si comparano i diversi esiti tra ebraismo e cristianesimo (protestanti, cattolici, evangelici, ortodossi, per il caso italiano si terrà conto di diverse problematiche inerenti la Massoneria, il Fascismo e i movimenti sovversivi della prima metà del Novecento.
I dati quantitativi sono ricostruiti dai database dell’Enciclopedia della Cremazione di Davies e Mates, della Società per la Cremazione della Gran Bretagna su dati demografici dell’ONU e dell’ Eurostat dal 1876 per arrivare al 2014.
Sul piano qualitativo, questo lavoro ha preso in esame anche diversi sopralluoghi da me compiuti in città italiane ed europee (Milano, Livorno, Pisa, Bologna, Cava de’Tirreni (SA), Amsterdam, Amburgo,  Barcellona, Copenhagen, Francoforte, Madrid, Toledo, Siviglia). I casi più interessanti al fine della nostra ricerca rientrano tra queste pagine con una nostra documentazione fotografica.
A parte casi come Milano e Livorno, molte delle città toccate non hanno una valenza in termini assoluti sulle cremazioni, ma ci aiutano a capire le differenze in termini di organizzazione cimiteriale da paese a paese, frutto di secoli di differenziali di welfare, attitudini religiose e posizione geografica.
Nel capitolo 1 tratteremo la differenza sostanziale tra le narrazioni delle due civiltà religiose esistenti in Europa: Cristianesimo ed Ebraismo e come, nel tempo l’urbanizzazione ne modifichi l’apporto con il fiorire nell’Ottocento di pratiche come la medicalizzazione, l’individualizzazione e l’ascesa della borghesia.
Sarà questa la base della letteratura teorica della nostra ricerca con fonti come Ariès e Vovelle oltre ad una nutrita letteratura sociologica fiorita in un corpus di opere di Antonio Cavicchia Scalamonti e i suoi collaboratori presso l’Università Federico II di Napoli.
Tratteremo in particolare della diversità di approccio dell’atteggiamento ebraico e di quello cristiano.
Tracceremo le tappe fondamentali del cambiamento dei costumi che portano alla costruzione di cimiteri e alle sepolture individuali, una storia in cui la cremazione non è che l’ultimo anello di un processo di mutamento ancora in corso. Quanto alla desacralizzazione problematizzeremo se essa è davvero un processo di laicizzazione o qualcosa di diverso. Non mancheranno gli aspetti organizzativi e commerciali come quello delle pompe funebri.
Nel capitolo 2 per tanto tratteremo un’analisi dei casi europei
le città che hanno ereditato lo status di porti franchi e città libere che si configurano come avanzate sulla pratica della cremazione visto il loro mélange
la cremazione sarà molto attiva in quelle città dove c’è propensione alla finanza e all’analisi del rischio dove cioè è più sviluppato il senso delle assicurazioni private in forma di previdenza che porteranno ad uno sviluppo altresì di previdenza funeraria e di autotassazione per la creazione di Società Crematorie che saranno più propense ad esistere in città dove grado di coscienza civica è maggiore
Tracceremo poi schede analitiche sui primi paesi che giungono a creare associazioni pro-cremazione e apertura di crematori dal 1876 al 1930.
Soprattutto nel caso dell’Italia, esaminato nel capitolo 3, i toni hanno un carattere militante della pratica crematoria in funzione anticlericale, massonica, radicale e anti fascista. La nostra bibliografia di riferimento al caso nazionale è soprattutto frutto della Fondazione Ariodante Fabbretti e ha un particolare focus sul periodo post-Risorgimentale dal 1880 al 1920.

The study of cremated human remains from archaeological contexts has traditionally been viewed as less valuable than the study of inhumed bodies. However, recent methodological and theoretical developments regarding the taphonomic processes that transform the human body during cremation have highlighted their potential for understanding past cultural and funerary practices. This study combines the first application of spectroscopic with more traditional methods of studying cremated bone to examine Romano-British contexts, with the aim of better understanding funerary practices along the military frontier. Five Romano-British military sites from northern England (Beckfoot, Carlisle, Herd Hill, Lincoln and Malton) were studied, with remains excavated from a range of cinerary urn contexts. Despite the known heterogeneity of the ethnic composition of the Roman army, analyses revealed a surprising consistency with respect to the cremation practice, implying shared knowledge of pyre procedure and, possibly, a prescribed funerary practice amongst military communities in the Roman North. The consistency within these five northern provincial sites in Britain stands in contrast to cremation contexts from Roman sites elsewhere in Europe, as well as other periods of the British past. The associated material culture recovered from these cremation deposits, however, does provide evidence for differences in dress and bodily display. This contrasts with the homogeneity of the cremation technology and highlights the importance of these individualizing features for signalling identity amongst Roman military communities in Britain.

In current environmental discourse, disposal does not remove and destroy waste but rather transforms it into something useful or harmful and/or re-locates it. This article shows how this operates when the ‘waste’ comprises human remains, specifically how innovative ‘dispersal’ practices are now challenging the ‘disposal’ discourse of nineteenth-century burial and twentieth-century cremation which contained the dead within special death spaces separated from everyday environments for living. Since the 1990s, disposal practices have been supplemented by practices with an entirely different rationale. Instead of containing the dead in safe, out of the way places, new practices disperse human remains back into environments that sustain the living, whether this be via natural burial, new cremation practices or new technologies currently being developed, namely alkaline hydrolysis and freeze-drying. Promoters of all these innovations appeal to ecological usefulness, blurring the boundary between the living and the dead, thereby positioning the dead body as a gift to the living and/or to the planet. Thus, a new ecological mentality is increasingly framing the management of all the dead – not just those interred in natural burial grounds. In the light of this, we reconsider land use policy, and question death studies’ use of the term ‘disposal’.

Rogge 1973. Het archeologisch onderzoek werd uitgevoerd door Koen De Groote, met medewerking van Roger Schockaert (Stad Oudenaarde), Ghislain De Rycke en Stefaan De Smet (beide I.A.P.-Buitendienst Oost-Vlaanderen). 5 Aardewerk in prehistorische techniek afkomstig uit de oudste bouwlaag. Schaal 1:3. Handmade pottery from the oldest layer. Scale 1:3. Met dank aan Prof. dr. J. Bourgeois voor de raadgevingen betreffende dit aardewerk.

Cremation is a complex and variable fiery technology. Across the human past and present, fire has been variously deployed to transform the dead in a range of spatial and social contexts. Often operating together with other disposal methods, cremation has risen and fallen in popularity in association with many shifts in mortuary practice since the Stone Age (Cerezo-Román & Williams 2014;Williams et al. 2017).Yet ‘cre- mation’ is far more than just the fiery dissolution of the human cadaver: in the human past and present it is often part of a multi-staged mortuary process that can afford a range of distinctive spatial and material possibilities for the translation and curation of the ‘cremains’ or ‘ashes’ together with a range of other mate- rial cultures and substances. By rendering cadavers fragmented, shrunken, and distorted, burning bodies not only denies decomposition and speeds corpse transformation, it renders the dead portable and partible. In a range of subsequent post-cremation practices and beliefs, ‘ashes’ from pyres can be considered a versatile mnemonic and numinous substance which might be consigned to graves and tombs, but also readily strewn over land and water or integrated into above-ground architectures and portable material cultures. Hence, not only does cremation involve fiery transformation, it facilitates the creation of varied and distinctive landscapes of death and memory through the deposition and commemoration of the dead in which ashes facilitate remembering and forgetting through their presence and their staged absence.

2012

Par Virginie Ropiot, Benoît Sendra et Jonathan Moquel

avec la collaboration de : Vianney Forest, Nicolas Garnier, Luke Howarth, Philippe Ponel, Béatrice Prat et Julie Touzeau

et la participation de : Aurélie Gille, Stéphanie Rusillon et Marianne Touma

The aim of this paper is to study the contribution of the Alceste software in analysing diachronic data and social representations processes. Two diachronic researches are proposed as examples: the first one studies an ancient object: politics; the second one studies an emergent object: cremation in a precise sociocultural context. These two studies are characterised by a variability concerning data collection, type of object and methods of analysis, making it interesting to associate them for methodological purpose. The article seeks to proof the empirical properties of Alceste convenient for the study of emergence, process of objectivation and anchoring, and also transformation in social representations. In this study, temporal factor is determinant in the outset of representational dynamics.

INTRODUCTION 5
CHAPTER 1: WHAT IN CREMATION IS GOING ON? 7
CHAPTER 2: THE ORIGIN AND PRACTICE OF CREMATION 15
CHAPTER 3: THE HISTORIC JUDEO–CHRISTIAN VIEW ON CREMATION 27
CHAPTER 4: THE REASONS FOR CREMATION EXAMINED 39
CHAPTER 5: IS CREMATION A PROPER PRACTICE? 63
CHAPTER 6: WHAT ABOUT EMBALMING? 73
CHAPTER 7: WHAT ABOUT ORGAN DONATION? 82
CHAPTER 8: WHAT IS CYRONIC SUSPENSION? 87
CHAPTER 9: CANNIBALISM: ARE YOU SERIOUS? 93
CHAPTER 10: ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS 98
APPENDIX 1: CREMATION STATISTICS IN THE UNITED STATES 108
APPENDIX 2: VARIOUS RELIGIONS ON CREMATION 112
ANNOTATED SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 115
BIBLIOGRAPHY 117
GLOSSARY 128

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Abstract

Traditionally cremations in Nepal are performed with open pyres. These cremations are fluid public events organised and managed by relatives, local communities and ritual specialists. Traditional cremation practices are full of cosmological, eschatological and soteriological significance. The main purpose of the cremation practice is to purify and free the soul from the body of the deceased in order to secure a rebirth in another realm, render the soul a safe journey to heaven, and to turn the soul into a benign ancestor instead of a haunting ghost. On the 24th of January 2016, Pashupati Area Development Trust inaugurated the first functioning modern electric crematorium in Nepal at the traditional cremation site near the Pashupatinath temple, at the holy river Bagmati, 5 km northeast of Kathmandu. The main incentive for Pashupati Area Development Trust to establish an electric crematorium was to diminish river pollution, carbon dioxide emission and to curb deforestation. How do Hindus in Nepal continue, compromise and adapt their traditional cremation practice in the modern indoor electric crematorium? The aim of this article is to explore the continuity, changes and challenges to traditional Hindu cremation practice in the electric crematorium at Pashupati area.

This presentation will impact the forensic science community by shedding new light on the thermal stability of bone collagen, allowing for an improved prediction of the success rate of collagen extraction for subsequent analyses such as dating or stable isotope analyses.

All amino acids found in proteins exist as one of two possible stereoisomers, known as L-amino acids and D-amino acids. With the exception of glycine, all amino acids are L-amino acids, which however have the ability to change into the D-form over time. The process of reaching an equilibrium between the L and the D form is called racemization. Amino Acid Racemization (AAR) is a time and temperature dependent process that has found application in the dating of materials, paleothermometry and age at death estimation. Currently there is no clear consensus in the literature regarding the thermal stability of collagen, an issue which this research sheds more light on. Sheep (ovis aries) ribs were cut into 4 cm long pieces and burnt at temperatures between 100 and 1000 °C in 50 °C increments for 45 minutes. All samples were weighed pre and post burning. For demineralization samples were suspended in 0.5 M HCl, which was exchanged every 2 days. After 10 days the HCl was removed and replaced by distilled water until a solution of pH 3 was obtained. Samples were heated at 70 °C for 48 hours and subsequently filtered. The extracted collagen was frozen at -20 °C. 250 μL of solution from each sample were placed in a sterile glass vial adding 100 μL 7 M HCl per sample. The vials were flushed with nitrogen, heated at 110 °C for 18 hours and subsequently dried under vacuum in a centrifugal evaporator. Samples were rehydrated for analysis. The sample’s amino acid composition was analyzed by reverse-phase HPLC using fluorescent detection. 2 μL of sample was injected and mixed with 2.2 μL derivitizing reagent. The amino acids were separated on a C18 HyperSil BDS column (5 mm * 250 mm) at 25 °C using a gradient elution of 3 solvents: sodium acetate buffer, methanol and acetonitrile. The fluorescence detector uses a xenon-arc flash lamp at a frequency of 55 Hz with a 280 nm cut-off filter and an excitation wavelength of 230 nm and emission wavelength of 445 nm. The D and L isomers of 12 amino acids could be analyzed, namely serine, L-threonine, L-histidine, glycine, L-arginine, alanine, tyrosine, valine, phenylalanine, leucine, isoleucine as well as aspartic acid and glutamic acid. The amino acid concentration rapidly decreases from 250 °C onwards, being below reliable detection levels from 400 °C. Up to temperatures of 250 °C, solely aspartic acid racemizes, reaching a D/L ratio of 0.3 at 250 °C. From 300 °C onwards the other amino acids commence racemization. From 400 °C onwards, the total amino acid concentration is too low to accurately depict D/L ratios. The composition of amino acids was dominated by collagen up to 400 °C. The findings illustrate the thermal degradation of bone collagen. Up to 250 °C virtually no amino acid racemization with the exception of aspartic acid, which is one of the only amino acids which can racemize whilst still internally bound, takes place. Collagen, when heated, begins to locally unravel its triple helix, releasing the collagen stabilizing H-bonded water, which leads to a gradual collapse of the triple helical structure at around 150 °C. At temperatures from between 250-300 °C a sudden drop in total amino acid concentration as well as the commencing of racemization of all other amino acids can be observed indicating a catastrophic breakdown of collagen. The now free amino acids continue racemization up until their complete combustion from around 400 °C onwards. Successful collagen extraction is the basis for a multitude of forensically relevant analyses, such as stable isotope analysis, radio carbon dating or genetic profiling. Being able to accurately determine the point at which collagen denaturizes and amino acids are lost is therefore of paramount importance for forensic analyses.

Olga Yu Potemkina, Alexander Syrovatko, Maria V. Dobrovolskaya, Natalia G Svirkina.The article presents materials from a new burial made
by a cremation rite at burial ground Sokolova Pustyn.
Based on the characteristics of topography and implements
of the new object the authors conclude about its
belonging to a new burial ground (Sokolova Pustyn 2)
and date it as the last quarter of the 1 Millennium BC.

Burnt, buried and biodegraded. Field osteological studies of cremated bones

This article deals with the taphonomy of cremated bones and the affect it has on the quality and quantity of bones. The various taphonomic factors, both anthropogenic and biological, are described chronologically, i.e. from the death of a human to the treatment of bones by archaeologists and osteologists. The bone material which is used comes from the excavation at Sommaränge Skog in Tensta parish in Uppland, Sweden. The main aim is to investigate if there is a correlation
between the bone fragment size, the degree of preservation and the archaeological context which includes deposit size, type of feature and location. The study shows that the degradation of bones at Sommaränge Skog most probably has increased
due to not only human interference but also natural taphonomic processes, for example mechanical weathering, ground frost, movements of water and soil acidity. The study also shows an increase in degradation and fragmentation of bones which are deposited in an unprotected place near the ground surface. Deposits with a smaller amount of bones are also more affected by degradation and fragmentation than larger deposits. Bone fragmentation also increases due to handling of the bones by archaeologists and osteologists, suggesting that the idea of the supposedly “unaltered and unaffected cremated bones” should be questioned and discussed furthermore in the future.

Publisher: Riksantikvarieämbetet, UV Gal; SAU (Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis); Upplandsmuseet

Publication Date: 2007

Publication Name:  Att nå den andra sidan: om begravning och ritual i Uppland. Arkeologi E4 Uppland – studier II. Notelid, M. (ed.). [Eng. translation: To reach the other side: burial and ritual in Uppland Sweden]

Following a mid twelfth-century BC demographic crisis, Frattesina, in northern Italy, arose as a prominent hub linking continental Europe and the Mediterranean, as evidenced by the remarkable variety of exotic materials and commodities discovered at the site. Debate persists, however, about the extent to which migrants influenced the foundation and development of Frattesina. The authors present the results of strontium isotope analyses, which suggest significant migration to the site, particularly of elites, mostly from within a 50km radius. Among these non-indigenous people, the authors identify a 'warrior-chief', whom they interpret as representing a new, more hierarchical society.

Summary and Conclusion - In July 2021, the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services tabled a consultation paper seeking feedback to inform potential proposals for changes to the Funeral, Burial and Cremation Services Act, 2002 (FBCSA) and/or its regulations. The FBCSA and its regulations set out certain requirements for Ontario's bereavement sector. The Ministry's consultation paper also seeks to address recommendations made by the Auditor General in a recent report as well as concerns raised by bereavement sector stakeholders. We are pleased to have this opportunity to submit comments as part on consultations on reforming the FBCSA and its regulations and other related legislation and policies.

This brief addresses numerous aspects of the current regime governing cemetery and bereavement operations. However, our focus is on potential use of conservation burial reserves (CBRs) as a means to address neglected or abandoned cemeteries and potential other additional cemetery closure order application requirements, raise funds, provide consumers with a wider range of choices at more affordable prices, increase greenspace in communities for its many physical and mental health benefits, and simultaneously promote conservation of lands for wildlife and plants in urban and rural areas in Ontario.

David McRobert is an environmental lawyer based in southern Ontario, and Adjunct Professor. David served for sixteen years as In-House Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor at the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. In the past 11 years, he has worked with numerous clients on a range of topics including environmental defence work, wireless radiation safety, air pollution, water pollution and chemical sensitivity. David has a B.Sc. in Biology and a Masters in Environmental Studies in Biological Conservation from York U. He graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School, undertook graduate law studies and was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1990. David taught law to undergraduate and graduate students at York University, Osgoode Hall Law School, the University of Toronto and Humber College between 1988 and 2012. He has published more than 30 books and reports and dozens of journal articles and articles. Book titles include Risky Business: A Guide to the Use, Handling and Transportation of Asbestos (2012) and My Municipal Recycling System Made Me Fat and Sick (2012).

Angela Dittrich begins her second year as a Masters in Environmental Studies and law (MES/JD) student at York University and Osgoode Hall Law School in Sept. 2021. She also is completing a Business and the Environment graduate diploma from the Schulich School of Business. Angela has a B.Sc. in Integrated Science from McMaster University. Her current research analyzes extended producer responsibility (EPR) approaches across North American jurisdictions with a focus on environmental impacts, economic impacts, and metrics used to determine program efficacy.

This thesis examines the role of death and bereavement within the urban context and the potential benefits of translating this emotion and outlook of grief into a positive catalyst for community building, placemaking, and personal growth. It focuses on the idea of pet crematoriums and dealing with the sorrow of the death of a pet in equality to that of a human. Our discomfort with the death of pets and inability to express, along with issues of land value and hygiene have moved these facilities to neglected parts of the city. This identifies our culture’s growing reluctance towards death and mourning as an eventuality, therefore why architecture dealing with these spaces tends towards the bland and unpleasing or unobtrusive. The thesis challenges these set contemporary approaches to the placement of death of pets in our psyches and in the city.

By redefining the government’s proposal set in Dwarka, Delhi, this pet crematorium design reflects death and remembrance not as something to be isolated but rather as a positive impetus within our lives and communities. To achieve this, a detailed architectural hierarchy is developed based out of three main strategies: functionality, celebrating the unseen, and poeticized transition. Variations among these themes will be employed to create a meaningful and powerfully charged set of architectural forms and elements.

Archaeologists studying multi-component cemeteries have argued that the societies who reused cemeteries were motivated by connecting to the past. However, often overlooked are the potential roles of mortuary events and sites as key social and political venues for creating, contesting, and unmaking relationships and identities for the later community independent of a connection to the past. In this paper, I explore the social and political roles that mortuary rituals at the Mound of the Hostages, Tara, Ireland played during the Middle Neolithic (3350-2800 BC) and Early Bronze Age (2300-1700 BC).

Tara’s emergence as a regional mortuary center occurred only several hundred years after its initial reuse by Early Bronze Age peoples. Just as importantly, the burial activity that marked Tara as special in the Early Bronze Age was very brief, revealing that the regional centralization at Tara was ultimately unsuccessful. The analysis of cemetery formation at Tara is only possible due to the development of a fine-grained site specific chronology. These results have broad implications for how we understand cemetery formation, the reuse of mortuary monuments, and the dynamics of social complexity in prehistoric societies.

MEMORIAL EARTH PARK ©
AN ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE PUBLIC SPACE, SYNTHESIZING BURIAL MOUNDS, FAMILY TREES AND HUMAN BODY COMPOSTING IN NORTH TEXAS

Gregory Alan Craig, PLA, LEED AP BD+C, MLA
The University of Texas At Arlington, 2019
Supervising Professor: Dr. Diane Jones Allen

Over the next 30 years, the population growth in North Texas will place increasing demands on our urban infrastructure and natural resources, while reducing our available public land and open space. Impacts from expanded urban development will decrease our tree canopy coverage, reduce air & water quality and increase impervious surfaces, urban heat island effects and storm water flooding. Environmental sustainability is critical to combat the negative impacts of future growth in North Texas.
The memorial landscape is a landscape of tremendous cultural significance in America (Wasserman, 1998) , but the two most traditional means of disposing of human remains are not sustainable, have significant carbon footprints, impose harsh environmental impacts and consume open space that is increasingly scarce in our ever expanding urban regions. Fortunately, new green death care technologies will provide opportunities for cities to create culturally significant and enduring memorial landscape. In recent years, scientific innovations and shifting outlooks on death have bred a change in the ways Americans plan for the fate of their dearly departed, including human body composting and green burial practices that offer a more sustainable vision of death in the future.
The objective of this design thesis is to research the history, form, spiritual and symbolic nature of man-made, burial and ceremonial mounds, while investigating human body composting. The goal is to synthesize a new land-form typology and create an environmentally sustainable, memorial mound park in the North Texas region. A memorial park designed around the principles of environmental sustainability. Sustainability that goes beyond site issues and addresses the issues inherent with traditional human body disposition.

This text comprises a critical discussion of assemblage theory and its application to burial studies. In recent research, burials have been viewed as fluid and indeterminate assemblages that 'become' in varied ways depending on different perceptions (concepts and ideas) and apparatuses (e.g. excavation tools and measuring instruments). The past and the present are thus mixed in potentially ever-new configurations which run the risk of replacing epistemological relativism with ontological fluidity. It is argued here that the hypothetical mutability of burial assemblages can be reduced significantly by addressing the varying speed and degree of the involved processes of integration and disintegration. By doing this, the main focus is shifted to the animacy of such processes and how they may have been understood and utilized in burials. Using both general and specific examples, it is argued that cremation burials can be studied as carefully compiled amalgamations that utilize the properties and animacies of different materialities to deal with death, corpses and the afterlife.

This is a proof, you can find the final version here: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774320000116
It is Open Access.

Introduzione: l'incinerazione in una prospettiva multidisciplinare e comparativa 334 Massimo Cultraro 6 KURTZ -BOARDMAN 1971, pp. 51-55, 71-74, 96-99; OESTIGAARD 1999. 7 Per un'analisi della pratica della cremazione in rapporto agli elementi di trasformazione sul piano biologicomateriale e ontologico si veda BARBER 1990. 8 È il caso dello studio della pratica dell'incinerazione nelle culture neolitiche del Mediterraneo centro-orientale: CULTRARO 2010, pp. 106-109. 9 COLDSTREAM -CATLING 1996. 10 MUSGRAVE 1996. 11 Per una sintesi sulle più recenti metodologie di indagine dell'archeologia della morte nella penisola italiana tra età del Bronzo e del Ferro: PERONI -VANZETTI 2006.

The analysis of burned bone stumbles on the problems raised by the heatinduced changes that seriously interfere with the methods adopted by biological anthropologists. These changes especially affect the structure of bone leading to fragmentation, dimensional modification, warping and fracturing. As a result, quantitative analysis based on measurements and weighing are usually overlooked due to uncertainties regarding their ability to correctly process burned skeletal remains. Although some pioneering research on this issue has been carried out in the Past, this remained sporadic and with little application from  bioanthropologists. In addition, a significant part of that research was either developed on rather small samples of human bones or on samples of faunal bones. Also, some other investigation was carried out by extrapolating from the results obtained on unburned skeletons, which is an inadequate indirect approach. The present research tackled these problems by analysing present-day cremations on a modern crematorium in order to investigate three distinct issues. The first one regarded the relevance of heat-induced warping and thumbnail fracturing for the determination of the pre-cremation condition of the human remains. Secondly, the implication of heat-related dimensional change on sexual dimorphism and consequent sex determination from calcined bones was addressed. Finally, the value of postcremation skeletal weights for bioarchaeological interpretation of funerary contexts was also investigated. This was done by examining human skeletons both prior and after cremation on two different cremation samples: one composed of recently dead cadavers
submitted to cremation; and another one composed of dry skeletons recently exhumed.
The research demonstrated that, although heat-induced warping and thumbnail fracturing is much more typical of cremations on fleshed cadavers, these features are also present on the burned remains of defleshed skeletons. Therefore, the occurrence of these features is probably related to the preservation of collagen-apatite bonds which play an important role on the mechanical strength of bone. As for sexual dimorphism, the results revealed that it is not significantly affected by heat and that such differences between females and males can be useful to classify unknown individuals according to sex based on the univariate metric analysis of calcined bones. Therefore, sex determination of this kind of material needs not to rely exclusively on the examination of morphological traits which requires a multivariate approach. At last, logistic regression coefficients that are able to estimate the expected proportion of the specific skeletal regions present on funerary assemblages were developed. This was carried out in order to assist on the interpretation of the course of action adopted during the recovery of the skeletal remains from the pyre and their consequent deposition in the grave. Such method was proven to be more dependable than previous ones based on weight references from unburned skeletons. This research demonstrated that, although heat-induced bone changes can indeed be very extensive, their analytical potential is not completely wiped out. Nonetheless, such analysis needs to be based on references that are specific to burned bone to allow for reliable insights. As a result, additional research is needed to better equip bioanthropologists with new analytical techniques more suitable for the investigation of burned human skeletal remains.

Stonehenge London 0 k m 400 N The assemblage of Neolithic cremated human remains from Stonehenge is the largest in Britain, and demonstrates that the monument was closely associated with the dead. New radiocarbon dates and Bayesian analysis indicate that cremated remains were deposited over a period of around five centuries from c. 3000–2500 BC. Earlier cremations were placed within or beside the Aubrey Holes that had held small bluestone standing stones during the first phase of the monument; later cremations were placed in the peripheral ditch, perhaps signifying the transition from a link between specific dead individuals and particular stones, to a more diffuse collectivity of increasingly long-dead ancestors.

Fotocopie per uso personale del lettore possono essere effettuate nei limiti del 15% di ciascun volume/fascicolo di periodico dietro pagamento alla SIAE del compenso previsto dall ' art. 68, comma 4, della legge 22 aprile 1941 n. 633 ovvero dall ' accordo stipulato tra SIAE, AIE, SnS e CnA, COnFARTIGIAnATO, CASA, CLAAI, COnFCOMMERCIO, COnFESERCEnTI il 18 dicembre 2000. Le riproduzioni per uso differente da quello personale sopracitato potranno avvenire solo a seguito di specifica autorizzazione rilasciata dagli aventi diritto/dall ' editore. indice 3 Età del Bronzo 9 Maria Bernabò Brea, Andrea Cardarelli, Mauro Cremaschi, L' Emilia tra antica e recente età del Bronzo 33 Maurizio Cattani, Monica Miari, La Romagna tra antica e recente età del Bronzo 53 Maria Bernabò Brea, Lorenza Bronzoni, Mauro Cremaschi, Loretana Salvadei, I tumuli del Bronzo Antico rinvenuti in via Sant'Eurosia a Parma 65 Monica Miari, Corrado Caporali, Simona Muratori, Erika Valli, I villaggi dell'antica età del Bronzo in Romagna: scelte insediamentali, organizzazione degli spazi e analisi delle strutture abitative 73 L'area abitativa della prima fase nella terramara di Forno del Gallo a Beneceto (Parma) 101 Paolo Ferrari, Angela Mutti, Il sito terramaricolo di Vicofertile -Parma (Ricerche 1980-2010) 111 Chiara Pizzi, Mauro Cremaschi, Le strutture idrauliche al margine del Villaggio Grande della terramara Santa Rosa di Poviglio 119 Paola A.E. Bianchi, Metallurgia e spazi produttivi nel Bronzo Recente in Emilia: i casi di Beneceto e Poviglio 133 Marco Marchesini, Marialetizia Carra, Silvia Marvelli, Elisabetta Rizzoli, Paesaggio vegetale e sussistenza in Emilia orientale e Romagna nell'età del Bronzo 145 Maurizio Cattani, Aspetti culturali e identità sfumate nell'età del Bronzo dell'Emilia Romagna 155 Valeria Corazza, Andrea di Renzoni, Fabrizio Finotelli, Vanessa Poli, Il Bronzo recente in Emilia orientale e Romagna: scansioni cronologiche e caratteri della produzione ceramica 165 d'altura dell'età del Bronzo di Monterenzio Vecchio (Bologna) 175 Michele Cupitò, Giovanni Leonardi, Il sito arginato di Fondo Paviani e la polity delle Valli Grandi Veronesi prima e dopo il collasso delle terramare. Nuovi dati per una riconsiderazione del problema indice 4 187 Marco Bettelli, Andrea Cardarelli, Isabella damiani, Le ultime terramare e la Penisola: circolazione di modelli o diaspora? 199 daniela Cocchi Genick, Dinamica della comunicazione culturale tra l'Emilia Romagna e le regioni centrali dall'antica alla media età del Bronzo 209 Laura Morabito, Giovanna Pizziolo, Lucia Sarti, Rapporti culturali e vie di comunicazione tra Toscana Settentrionale ed Emilia Romagna durante l'età del Bronzo: un approccio territoriale 219 Eloisa La Pilusa, Monica Miari, Alessandro zanini, Il passaggio fra Bronzo recente e finale nell'Italia centrale alla luce delle nuove scoperte e della revisione dei dati romagnoli

This thesis provides new, fundamental insights into the morphological features, chronology and development of Bronze Age ceramics from Norwegian burial contexts (1700-500 BC). It furthermore focuses on how different depositional practices of pottery in the Bronze Age, as well as the pottery itself, can be interpreted socially and ritually within a framework of relational identity.
The study has included finds of ceramic vessels and lids from both Early Bronze Age/EBA (1700-1100 BC) and Late Bronze Age/LBA (1100-500 BC). Based on the prevalence of the findings, a division was made into four analysis regions: Nordland/North-West Norway, Sunnhordland/Karmøy, South-West Norway and Eastern Norway. The material were then divided into two main categories: rock-tempered ceramics and western Norwegian asbestos ceramics. The rock tempered ceramics is interpeted as part of an overreaching tradition and development primarily from southern Scandinavian bronze age pottery. The asbestos ceramic is exclusively found in EBA graves in the northernmost analysis region, rooted or influenced by the Fennoscandian tradition of asbestos tempering but made in a specifically local style and in burial contexts that connects to southern Scandinavia.
Methodically, the analysis builds on detailed classifications and reconstructions of pottery. The basis for the chronology is a combination of new 14C datings of cremated remains from urns, re-calibrated 14C dates from several previously dated contexts as well as typological dates. The works and knowledge on ceramics from the bronze age i Norway is extremely limited, chronologies and insights from mainly Danish and Swedish publications have therefore been actively applied.
Overall, the development can be described as follows: In the EBA the rock tempered pottery appears in both inhumation and cremation graves. The finds are few in number and often fragmented, partly because of the practice of intentional deposition of fragmented pottery/pottery sherds in graves. These are coarse-tempered wares, small-medium size vessels that shows a limited range of shapes and designs – similar to the better studied South Scandinavian EBA-pottery. The asbestos tempered pottery is in one way related to the Fennoscandian tradition of asbestos tempering but with an isolated and specifically regional style, operating as regional emblems of identity in an elite network with ties to Skjælland in Denmark.
The rock-tempered ceramics in southern Scandinavia are undergoing major changes from EBA to YBA, due to the fact that new drinking culture and table culture were shared through new contact routes. This also changed the areas of use for ceramics, seeing new shapes, styles and uses. In Norway, very few graves are associated with this transition, and the pottery provides little morphological information. However, cremation became dominant in large parts of Europe around 1100 BC as part of the Urnfield pheonmenon and the use of ceramic vessels as urns became common in many places simultaneousy. As this study shows, the practice of using ceramic containers as burial urns are established in Norway around 1100 BC – first in the areas of Sunnhordland/Sør-Vestlandet. The urns from this early phase are part of a shared northern European stylistic design/ideal with similar shapes, sizes and design patterns (known as A-type). Around period IV/V, there is greater variation and individuality in the urns and in this phase the first face-urns emerges. Face urns are concidered part of the European face-urn phenomenon – a set of shared similar ideas and practices but made in local styles. Towards the end of the Bronze Age, the choice of vessel shapes and decorations is narrowed down and simplified and this follows into the start of the Pre-Roman Iron Age. In the later part of the LBA the connection to southern Scandinavia are clear through the B-type designs – designs that are adopted also into the earliest soapstone vessels and Risvik-asbestos ceramics.
This thesis gives new insight into a category of archaeological finds from the Norwegian Bronze Age that never before have been systemized. Furthermore, it contrubutes to a wider and perhaps different perspective on burial practices in the Bronze Age by recognizing ceramics as a meaningful source of knowledge on how burial customs were carried out and how relational identity was displayed – locally, regionally and inter-regionally.

The death of an individual leaves a corpse that constitutes a problem that can be solved by burial or cremation. The graves offer extensive information on funeral solutions which vary greatly in different cultures. What role does ritual play in mortuary practice and the handling of the dead body? The body processed to be preserved from complete disappearance illustrates how the choice of burial is at the origin of relics. There are cases with bones of the dead, which have been removed to be reintroduced into the world of the living, who teaches us to separate from death circumstances. That's why we wanted to have a regard on the vestiges of the ancient world and prehistory that keep the memory. This is the case of the Attic Vivenzio funerary hydria from Nola with a scene of the fall of Troy who became a sort of illustration of the Greek and Roman history and of a prehistoric Magdalenian fossil man from the late glacial eras at Veyrier-sous-Salève.